University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
THE FARM-HOUSE AT SILVERTON.

UNCLE EPHRAIM BARLOW was an old-fashioned
man, clinging to the old-time customs of his
fathers, and looking with but little toleration upon
what he termed the “new-fangled notions” of the present
generation. Born and reared amid the rocks and hills of
the Bay State, his nature partook largely of the nature of
his surroundings, and he grew into manhood with many
a rough point adhering to his character, which, nevertheless,
taken as a whole, was, like the wild New England
scenery, beautiful and grand. None knew Uncle Ephraim
Barlow but to respect him, and at the church in which
he was a deacon, few would have been missed more than
the tall, muscular man, with the long white hair, who,
Sunday after Sunday, walked slowly up the middle aisle
to his accustomed seat before the altar, and who regularly
passed the contribution box, bowing involuntarily
in token of approbation when a neighbor's gift was larger
than its wont, and gravely dropping in his own ten cents
—never more, never less, always ten cents—his weekly

offering, which he knew amounted in a year to just five
dollars and twenty cents. And still Uncle Ephraim was
not stingy, as the Silverton poor could testify, for many
a load of wood and bag of meal found entrance to the
doors where cold and hunger would have otherwise been,
while to his minister he was literally a holder up of the
weary hands, and a comforter in the time of trouble.

His helpmeet, Aunt Hannah, like that virtuous woman
mentioned in the Bible, was one “who seeketh wool and
flax, and worketh willingly with her hands, who riseth
while yet it is night, and giveth meat to her household,”
while Miss Betsy Barlow, the deacon's maiden sister, was
a character in her way, and bore no resemblance to those
frivolous females to whom the Apostle Paul had reference
when he condemned the plaiting of hair and the wearing
of gold and jewels. Quaint, queer and simple-hearted,
she had but little idea of any world this side of heaven,
except the one bounded by the “huckleberry” hills and
the crystal waters of Fairy Pond, which from the back
door of the farm-house were plainly seen, both in the
summer sunshine and when the intervening fields were
covered with the winter snow.

The home of such a trio was, like themselves, ancient
and unpretentious, nearly one hundred years having
elapsed since the solid foundation was laid to a portion
of the building. Unquestionably it was the oldest house
in Silverton, for on the heavy oaken door of what was
called the back room was still to be seen the mark of a
bullet, left there by some marauders who, during the
Revolution, had encamped in that neighborhood. George
Washington, it was said, had spent a night beneath its
roof, the deacon's mother pouring for him her Bohea tea
and breaking her home-made bread. Since that time
several attempts had been made to modernize the house.
Lath and plaster had been put upon the rafters and paper
upon the walls, wooden latches had given place to iron,
while in the parlor, where Washington had slept, there
was the extravagance of a porcelain knob, such, as Uncle
Ephraim said, was only fit for gentry who could afford to
be grand. For himself he was content to live as his father
did; but young folks, he supposed, must in some
things have their way, and so when his pretty niece, who

had lived with him from childhood to the day of her
marriage, came back to him a widow, bringing her two
fatherless children and a host of new ideas, he good-humoredly
suffered her to tear down some of his household
idols and replace them with her own. And thus it
was that the farm-house gradually changed its appearance,
for young womanhood which has had one glimpse
of the outer world will not settle down quietly amid fashions
a century old. Lucy Lennox, when she returned to
the farm-house, was not quite the same as when she went
away. Indeed, Aunt Betsy in her guileless heart feared
that she had actually fallen from grace, imputing the fall
wholly to Lucy's predilection for a certain little book on
whose back was written “Common Prayer,” and at which
Aunt Betsy scarcely dared to look, lest she should be
guilty of the enormities practiced by the Romanists
themselves. Clearer headed than his sister, the deacon
read the black-bound book, finding therein much that
was good, but wondering “why, when folks promised to
renounce the pomps and vanities, they did not do so, instead
of acting more stuck up than ever.” Inconsistency
was the underlying strata of the whole Episcopal
Church, he said, and as Lucy had declared her preference
for that church, he too, in a measure, charged her propensity
for repairs to the same source with Aunt Betsy;
but, as he could see no sin in what she did, he suffered
her in most things to have her way. But when she contemplated
an attack upon the huge chimney occupying
the centre of the building, he interefered; for there was
nothing he liked better than the bright fire on the hearth
when the evenings grew chilly and long, and the autumn
rain was falling upon the roof. The chimney should
stand, he said; and as no amount of coaxing could prevail
on him to revoke his decision, the chimney stood,
and with it the three fire-places, where, in the fall and
spring, were burned the twisted knots too bulky for the
kitchen stove. This was fourteen years ago, and in that
lapse of time Lucy Lennox had gradually fallen in with
the family ways of living, and ceased to talk of her cottage
in western New York, where her husband had died
and where were born her daughters, one of whom she
was expecting home on the warm July day when our
story opens.

Katy Lennox had been for a year an inmate of Canandaigua
Seminary, whither she was sent at the expense of
a distant relative to whom her father had been guardian,
and who, during her infancy, had had a home with Uncle
Ephraim, Mrs. Lennox having brought him with her
when she returned to Silverton. Dr. Morris Grant he
was now, and he had just come home from a three years'
sojourn in Paris, and was living in his own handsome
dwelling across the fields toward Silverton village, and
half a mile or more from Uncle Ephraim's farm-house.
He had written from Paris, offering to send his cousins,
Helen and Kate, to any school their mother might select,
and as Canandaigua was her choice, they had both gone
thither the year before, but Helen, the eldest, had fallen
sick within the first three months, and returned to Silverton,
satisfied that the New England schools were good
enough for her. This was Helen; but Katy was different.
Katy was more susceptible of polish and refinement
—so the mother thought; and as she arranged and rearranged
the little parlor, lingering longest by the piano,
Dr. Morris's gift, she drew bright pictures of her favorite
child, wondering how the farm-house and its inmates
would seem to her after all she must have seen during
her weeks of travel since the close of the summer term.
And then she wondered why cousin Morris was so annoyed
when told that Katy had accepted an invitation to
accompany Mrs. Woodhull and her party on a trip to
Montreal and Lake George, taking Boston on her homeward
route. Katy's movements were nothing to him, unless—and
the little ambitious mother struck at random
a few notes of the soft-toned piano as she thought how
possible it was that the interest always manifested by
staid, quiet Morris Grant for her light-hearted Kate was
more than a brotherly interest, such as he would naturally
feel for the daughter of one who had been to him a
second father. But Katy was so much a child when he
went away to Paris that it could not be. She would
sooner think of Helen, who was more like him.

“It's Helen, if anybody,” she said aloud, just as a voice
near the window called out, “Please, Cousin Lucy, relieve

me of these flowers. I brought them over in honor of
Katy's return.

Blushing guiltily, Mrs. Lennox advanced to meet a tall,
dark-looking man, with a grave, pleasant face, which,
when he smiled, was strangely attractive, from the sudden
lighting up of the hazel eyes and the glitter of the white,
even teeth disclosed so fully to view.

“Oh, thank you, Morris! Katy will like them, I am
sure,” Mrs. Lennox said, taking from his hand a bouquet of
the choice flowers which grew only in the hothouse at Linwood.
“Come in for a moment, please.”

“No, thank you,” the doctor replied. “There is a case
of rheumatism just over the hill, and I must not be idle if I
would retain the practice given to me. Not that I make
anything but good will as yet, for only the Silverton poor
dare trust their lives in my inexperienced hands. But I
can afford to wait,” and with another flash of the hazel
eyes Morris walked away a pace or two, then, as if struck
with some sudden thought, turned back, and fanning his
heated face with his leghorn hat, said, hesitatingly, “By
the way, Uncle Ephraim's last payment on the old mill
falls due to-morrow. Tell him, if he says anything in
your presence, not to mind unless it is perfectly convenient.
He must be somewhat straitened just now, as
Katy's trip cannot have cost him a small sum.”

The clear, penetrating eyes were looking full at Mrs.
Lennox, who for a moment felt slightly piqued that Morris
Grant should take so much oversight of her uncle's
affairs. It was natural, too, that he should, she knew,
for there was a strong liking between the old man and
the young, the latter of whom, having lived nine years in
the family, took a kindly interest in everything pertaining
to it.

“Uncle Ephraim did not pay the bills,” Mrs. Lennox
faltered at last, feeling intuitively how Morris's delicate
sense of propriety would shrink from her next communication.
“Mrs. Woodhull wrote that the expense should
be nothing to me, and as she is fully able and makes so
much of Katy, I did not think it wrong.”

“Lucy Lennox! I am astonished!” was all Morris could
say, as the tinge of wounded pride dyed his cheek.

Kate was a connection—distant, it is true; but his

blood was in her veins, and his inborn pride shrank
from receiving so much from strangers, while he wondered
at her mother, feeling more and more convinced
that what he had so long suspected was literally true.
Mrs. Lennox was weak, Mrs. Lennox was ambitious, and
for the sake of associating her daughter with people
whom the world had placed above her she would stoop to
accept that upon which she had no claim.

“Mrs. Woodhull was so urgent and so fond of Katy;
and then I thought it well to give her the advantage of
being with such people as compose that party, the very
first in Canandaigua, besides some from New York,” Mrs.
Lennox began in self-defence, but Morris did not stop to
hear more, and hurried off a second time, while Mrs.
Lennox looked after him, wondering at the feeling which
she could not understand. “If Katy can go with the
Woodhulls and their set, I certainly shall not prevent it,”
she thought, as she continued her arrangement of the
parlor, wishing that it was more like what she remembered
Mrs. Woodhull's to have been, fifteen years ago.

Of course that lady had kept up with the times, and if
her old house was finer than anything Mrs. Lennox had
ever seen, what must her new one be, with all the modern
improvements? and leaning her head upon the mantel,
Mrs. Lennox thought how proud she should be could she
live to see her daughter in similar circumstances to the
envied Mrs. Woodhull, at that moment in the crowded
car between Boston and Silverton, tired, hot, and dusty,
and as nearly cross as a fashionable lady can be.

A call from Uncle Ephraim roused her, and going out
into the square entry she tied his linen cravat, and then
handing him the blue umbrella, an appendage he took
with him in sunshine and in storm, she watched him as
he stepped into his one-horse wagon and drove briskly
away in the direction of the depot, where he was to meet
his niece.

“I wish Cousin Morris had offered his carriage,” she
thought, as the corn-colored wagon disappeared from
view. “The train stops five minutes at West Silverton,
and some of those grand people will be likely to see the
turnout,” and with a sigh as she doubted whether it were
not a disgrace as well as an inconvenience to be poor, she

repaired to the kitchen, where sundry savory smells betokened
a plentiful dinner.

Bending over the sink, with her cap strings tucked
back, her sleeves rolled up, and her short purple calico
shielded from harm by her broad check apron, Aunt
Betsy stood cleaning the silvery onions, and occasionally
wiping her dim old eyes as the odor proved too strong
for her. At another table stood Aunt Hannah, deep in
the mysteries of the light white crust which was to cover
the tender chicken boiling in the pot, while in the oven
bubbled and baked the custard pie, remembered as Katy's
favorite, and prepared for her coming by Helen herself—
plain spoken, dark eyed Helen—now out in the strawberry
beds, picking the few luscious berries which almost
by a miracle had been coaxed to wait for Katy, who loved
them so dearly. Like her mother, Helen had wondered
how the change would impress her bright little sister,
for she remembered that even to her obtuse perceptions
there had come a pang when after only three months
abiding in a place where the etiquette of life was rigidly
enforced, she had returned to their homely ways at Silverton,
and felt that it was worse than vain to try to effect a
change. But Helen's strong sense, with the help of two
or three good cries, had carried her safely through, and
her humble home among the hills was very dear to her
now. But she was Helen, as the mother had said; she was
different from Katy, who might be lonely and homesick,
sobbing herself to sleep in her patient sister's arms, as
she did on that first night in Canandaigua, which Helen
remembered so well.

“It's better, too, now than when I came home,” Helen
thought, as with her rich, scarlet fruit she went slowly to
the house. “Morris is here, and the new church, and if
she likes she can teach in Sunday-school, though maybe
she will prefer going with Uncle Ephraim. He will be
pleased if she does,” and pausing by the door, Helen
looked across Fairy Pond in the direction of Silverton
village, where the top of a slender spire was just visible
—the spire of St John's, built within the year, and mostly
at the expense of Dr. Morris Grant, who, a zealous
churchman himself, had labored successfully to instill into
Helen's mind some of his own peculiar views, as well

as to awaken in Mrs. Lennox's heart the professions
which had lain dormant for as long a time as the little
black bound book had lain on the cupboard shelf, forgotten
and unread.

How the doctor's views were regarded by the Deacon's
family we shall see, by and by. At present our story has
to do with Helen, holding her bowl of berries by the rear
door and looking across the distant fields. With one
last glance at the object of her thoughts she re-entered
the house, where her mother was arranging the square
table for dinner, bringing out the white stone china instead
of the mulberry set kept for every day use.

“We ought to have some silver forks,” she said despondingly,
as she laid by each plate the three tined forks of
steel, to pay for which Helen and Katy had picked huckleberries
on the hills and dried apples from the orchard.

“Never mind, mother,” Helen answered cheerily: “if
Katy is as she used to be she will care more for us than
for silver, and I guess she is, for I imagine it would take
a great deal to make her anything but a warmhearted,
merry little creature.”

This was sensible Helen's tribute of affection to the
little, gay, chattering butterfly, at that moment an occupant
of Uncle Ephraim's corn-colored wagon, and riding
with that worthy toward home, throwing kisses to every
barefoot boy and girl she met, and screaming with delight
as the old familiar waymarks met her view.

“There is Aunt Betsy, with her dress pinned up as usual,”
she cried, when at last the wagon stopped before the
door, and the four women came hurriedly out to meet
her, almost smothering her with caresses, and then holding
her off to see if she had changed.

She was very stylish in her pretty traveling dress of
gray, made under Mrs. Woodhull's supervision, and
nothing could be more becoming than her jaunty hat,
tied with ribbons of blue, while the dainty kids, bought
to match the dress, fitted her fat hands charmingly, and
the little high-heeled boots of soft prunella were faultless
in their style. She was very attractive in her personal
appearance, and the mental verdict of the four females regarding
her intently was something as follows: Mrs. Lennox
detected unmistakable marks of the grand society she

had been mingling in, and was pleased accordingly; Aunt
Hannah pronounced her “the prettiest creeter she had
ever seen;” Aunt Betsy decided that her hoops were too
big and her clothes too fine for a Barlow; while Helen,
who looked beyond dress, or style, or manner, straight
into her sister's soft blue eyes, brimming with love and
tears, decided that Katy was not changed for the worse.
Nor was she. Truthful, loving, simple-hearted and full
of playful life she had gone from home, and she came
back the same, never once thinking of the difference between
the farm-house and Mrs. Woodhull's palace, or if
she did, giving the preference to the former.

“It was perfectly splendid to get home,” she said,
handing her gloves to Helen, her sun-shade to her
mother, her satchel to Aunt Hannah, and tossing her
bonnet in the vicinity of the water pail, from which it
was saved by Aunt Betsy, who put it carefully in the
press, examining it closely first and wondering how
much it cost.

Deciding that “it was a good thumpin' price,” she
returned to the kitchen, where Katy, dancing and curvetting
in circles, scarcely stood still long enough for them
to see that in spite of boarding-school fare, of which she
had complained so bitterly, her cheeks were rounder, her
eyes brighter, and her figure fuller than of old. She had
improved, but she did not appear to know it, or to guess
how beautiful she was in the fresh bloom of seventeen,
with her golden hair waving around her childish forehead,
and her deep blue eyes laughing so expressively
with each change of her constantly varying face. Everything
animate and inanimate pertaining to the old house,
came in for its share of notice. She kissed the kitten,
squeezed the cat, hugged the dog, and hugged the little
goat, tied to his post in the clover yard and trying so
hard to get free. The horse, to whom she fed handfuls
of grass, had been already hugged. She did that the
first thing after strangling Uncle Ephraim as she alighted
from the train, and some from the car window saw it,
smiling at what they termed the charming simplicity of
an enthusiastic school-girl. Blessed youth! blessed early
girlhood, surrounded by a halo of rare beauty! It was
Katy's shield and buckler, warding off many a cold criticism

which might otherwise have been passed upon
her.

They were sitting down to dinner now, and the deacon's
voice trembled as, with the blessing invoked, he
thanked God for bringing back the little girl, whose head
was for a moment bent reverently, but quickly lifted itself
up as its owner, in the same breath with that in
which the deacon uttered his amen, declared how hungry
she was, and went into rhapsodies over the nicely cooked
viands which loaded the table. The best bits were hers
that day, and she refused nothing until it came to Aunt
Betsy's onions, once her special delight, but now declined,
greatly to the distress of the old lady, who having been
on the watch for “quirks,” as she styled any departure
from long established customs, now knew she had found
one, and with an injured expression withdrew the offered
bowl, saying sadly, “You used to eat 'em raw, Catherine;
what's got into you?”

It was the first time Aunt Betsy had called a name so
obnoxious to Kate, especially when, as in the present
case, great emphasis was laid upon the rine, and from
past experience Katy knew that her good aunt was displeased.
Her first impulse was to accept the dish refused;
but when she remembered her reason for refusing
she said, laughingly, “Excuse me, Aunt Betsy, I love
them still, but—but—well, the fact is, I am going by and
by to run over and see Cousin Morris, inasmuch as he
was not polite enough to come here, and you know it
might not be so pleasant.”

“The land!” and Aunt Betsy brightened. “If that's
all, eat 'em. 'Tain't no ways likely you'll get near enough
to him to make any difference—only turn your head
when you shake hands.”

But Katy remained incorrigible, while Helen, who
guessed that her impulsive sister was contemplating a
warmer greeting of the doctor than a mere shaking of
his hands, kindly turned the conversation by telling how
Morris was improved by his tour abroad, and how much
the poor people thought of him.

“He is very fine looking, too,” she said, whereupon
Katy involuntarily exclaimed, “I wonder if he is as handsome
as Wilford Cameron? Oh, I never wrote about

him, did I?” and the little maiden began to blush as she
stirred her tea industriously.

“Who is Wilford Cameron?” asked Mrs. Lennox.

“Oh, he's Wilford Cameron, that's all; lives on Fifth
Avenue—is a lawyer—is very rich—a friend of Mrs.
Woodhull, and was with us in our travels,” Kate answered
rapidly, the red burning on her cheeks so brightly
that Aunt Betsy innocently passed her a big feather fan,
saying “she looked mighty hot.”

And Katy was warm, but whether from talking of Wilford
Cameron or not none could tell. She said no more
of him, but went on to speak of Morris, asking if it were
true, as she had heard, that he built the new church in
Silverton.

“Yes, and runs it, too,” Aunt Betsy answered, energetically,
proceeding to tell “what goin's on they had,
with the minister shiftin' his clothes every now and agin'
and the folks all talkin' together. Morris got me in
once,” she said, “and I thought meetin' was let out half a
dozen times, so much histin' round as there was. I'd as
soon go to a show, if it was a good one, and I told Morris
so. He laughed and said I'd feel different when I knew
'em better; but needn't tell me that prayers made up is
as good as them as isn't, though Morris, I do believe,
will get to Heaven a long ways ahead of me, if he is a
'Piscopal.”

To this there was no response, and being launched on
her favorite topic, Aunt Betsy continued:

“If you'll believe it, Helen here is one of 'em, and has
got a sight of 'Piscopal quirks into her head. Why, she
and Morris sing that talkin'-like singin' Sundays when
the folks get up and Helen plays the accordeon.”

“Melodeon, aunty, melodeon,” and Helen laughed
merrily at her aunt's mistake, turning the conversation
again, and this time to Canandaigua, where she had some
acquaintances.

But Katy was so much afraid of Canandaigua, and
what talking of it might lead to, that she kept to Cousin
Morris, asking innumerable questions about his house
and grounds, and whether there were as many flowers
there now as there used to be in the days when she and

Helen went to say their lessons at Linwood, as they had
done before Morris sailed for Europe.

“I think it right mean in him not to be here to see
me,” she said, poutingly,” and I am going over as quick
as I eat my dinner.”

But against this all exclaimed at once. She was too
tired, the mother said, she must lie down and rest, while
Helen suggested that she had not told them about her
trip, and Uncle Ephraim remarked that she would not find
Morris at home, as he was going that afternoon to Spencer.
This last settled it. Katy must stay at home; but
instead of lying down or talking about her journey, she explored
every nook and crevice of the old house and barn,
finding the nest Aunt Betsy had looked for in vain, and
proving to the anxious dame that she was right when she
insisted that the speckled hen had stolen her nest and
was in the act of setting. Later in the day, a neighbor
passing by spied the little maiden riding in the cart off
into the meadow, where she sported like a child among
the mounds of fragrant hay, playing her jokes upon the
sober deacon, who smiled fondly upon her, feeling how
much lighter the labor seemed because she was there
with him, a hindrance instead of a help, in spite of her
efforts to handle the rake skillfully.

“Are you glad to have me home again, Uncle Eph?” she
asked when once she caught him regarding her with a
peculiar look.

“Yes, Katy-did, very glad,” he answered; “I've missed
you every day, though you do nothing much but bother
me.”

“Why did you look so funny at me just now?” Kate
continued, and the deacon replied: “I was thinking how
hard it would be for such a highty-tighty thing as you to
meet the crosses and disappointments which lie all along
the road which you must travel. I should hate to see
your young life crushed out of you, as young lives sometimes
are?”

“Oh, never fear for me. I am going to be happy all
my life long. Wilford Cameron said I ought to be,” and
Katy tossed into the air a wisp of the new-made hay.

“I don't know who Wilford Cameron is, but there's no
ought about it,” the deacon rejoined. “God marks out

the path for us to walk in, and when he says it's best, we
know it is, though some are straight and pleasant and
others crooked and hard.”

“I'll choose the straight and pleasant then—why
shouldn't I?” Katy asked, laughing, as she seated herself
upon a rock near which the hay cart had stopped.

“Can't tell what path you'll take,” the deacon answered.
“God knows whether you'll go easy through the
world, or whether he'll send you suffering to purify and
make you better.”

“Purified by suffering,” Katy said aloud, while a
shadow involuntarily crept for an instant over her gay
spirits.

She could not believe she was to be purified by suffering.
She had never done anything very bad, and humming
a part of a song learned from Wilford Cameron she
followed after the loaded cart, returning slowly to the
house, thinking to herself that there must be something
great and good in the suffering which should purify at
last, but hoping she was not the one to whom this great
good should come.

It was supper-time ere long, and after that was over
Katy announced her intention of going to Linwood
whether Morris were there or not.

“I can see the housekeeper and the birds and flowers,”
she said, as she swung her straw hat by the string and
started from the door.

“Ain't Helen going with you?” Aunt Hannah asked,
while Helen herself looked a little surprised.

But Katy would rather go alone. She had a heap to
tell Cousin Morris, and Helen could go next time.

“Just as you like,” Helen answered, good-naturedly,
and so Katy went alone to call on Morris Grant.